


What He Deserves

by UrbanHymnal



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Grief/Mourning, Intimacy, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Reichenbach, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-17
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:08:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrbanHymnal/pseuds/UrbanHymnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Still alone, though. Us Watsons. Always alone. Think we deserve it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to LapOtter and Interrosand for betaing. Thanks to all of the folks in Antidiogenes for the cheerleading.

Sherlock returns on a ugly, rainy Friday. He stands huddled under an awning and even from a block away, John recognizes him. It’s not because of his clothes (hoodie, worn jeans) or his hair (brutally short and blonde, shoved under a baseball cap); it’s the way he takes a drag from his cigarette, head tilted back just so, and blows the smoke out between pursed lips. The little cloud of smoke fading away is undeniable proof, more than anything, that his friend is alive and breathing and standing in front of a shop on a godforsaken rainy day like it is any other day.

When he gets close enough to slug him, John barks out an incredulous laugh. Sherlock Bloody Holmes has a pierced lip and suddenly the entire thing is too ridiculous, too surreal. It’s a close thing, but he doesn’t hit him in the end. Instead he shakes his head, buys him a coffee and a scone because Sherlock’s cheek bones were always sharp, but they were never that sharp, and then tells him to bugger off for awhile because a man needs some time to come to grips with the fact that his friend, his best friend, is very much alive and very much a goddamn liar.

He goes home and buries his nose in Mary’s hair, letting the smell of peaches remind him that he has a home and it is here.

 

* * *

 

They bury her on a Tuesday; it’s sunny and perfect and halfway through the service John has to bite his lips to keep from laughing. It bubbles up out of him and he has to press a hand against his mouth to keep it from spilling out into the quiet little chapel. He can feel eyes on him and it only makes it worse. Tears work down his face in an attempt not to laugh. A whine manages to slip by his lips. Sherlock gently rests his hand on John’s knee, his pinky just brushing against John’s hand. The action only makes things worse; he must truly look at his wit’s end if Sherlock is reaching out to console him. He takes a rocky breath and tries to tame his heartbeat to the steady brush of Sherlock’s finger against his hand. He stares at Sherlock’s hand and thinks of the last time he held it, felt the warmth of it, the calluses. He traces the veins with his eyes and takes solace in the fact that it looks nothing like her hand.

Later, once everyone files out of his flat offering the last of their condolences, and all the covered dishes are put away into the refrigerator, John stands and looks out the window. The sky is painted pink and orange, perfect just like the rest of the day. Beautiful. The laughter that he had locked up under his ribs breaks free, shaking his whole body with it. He gasps and chokes and gags on it and it isn’t until Sherlock pulls him against his chest and gently cradles the back of his head that John realizes he is sobbing, not laughing.

They bury her on a perfect Tuesday and John drowns in his grief while clinging to his best friend, a man who shouldn’t be alive, but is.

 

* * *

 

The flat he moves into after the funeral is small, but it gives him enough space to breathe, to think of nothing, to sit and stare at the wall and swallow down the fact that he is back right where he was after Afghanistan. He gets up; he makes his bed; he sits and ignores the way his body shakes itself from one place to another.

There isn’t enough room in his brain to think about Baker Street or Sherlock, so he doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

 

“John? John?”

“No.” He grits his teeth and keeps his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. The wallpaper has pulled away from the wall and John can see an older layer underneath. It reminds him of Baker Street. He always wondered if the wallpaper there was Sherlock’s doing; it seemed so ridiculous and over-the-top, especially after having seen what Mrs. Hudson’s flat looked like. He wouldn’t put it past his friend to do something like that.

A hand, tiny and delicate, lights on his arm. He takes a deep breath and smells Mary’s perfume. It burns his throat and makes his eyes sting with grief. He had forgotten that Norah wore the same perfume as her sister. It smells just different enough on her to remind him that she isn’t Mary and he hates her so intensely in that moment that he wants to lash out like a frenzied, rabid animal. He doesn’t. Instead he forces himself to take another long, deep breath.

“John, I know you don’t want to talk about this--”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

“It’s just that your landlord has started to ask about when you’ll be moving your and Mary’s things out.” The word Mary catches in her throat.

“I told him I needed more time.” 

“John, it’s been three months.”

“I wasn’t aware that I was on a fucking time table.” He prefers rage. It feels better, sharper, than grief. It focuses him. He feels her flinch but doesn’t soften his voice. “He should be happy to take my bloody money and leave me alone. I’m the perfect tenant. No complaints. No loud noises. Rent always paid sharply on time.”

“I just think it would be good for you to pack away her things. You need closure.”

“What I need is for you to get out of my fucking face.” He’s standing. He doesn’t remember standing and suddenly he can’t breathe. There are spots dancing across his vision and the room tilts, sending his stomach somewhere in the vicinity of his feet. Through the black smears in his vision, he sees Norah’s face and chokes. The hair isn’t right, the eyes are a different color, but the frown, the tilt of her head, is all Mary’s. Acid crawls its way up his throat.

“I think it is time for you to leave, Ms. Harrison.” He hadn’t heard Sherlock enter his flat. When did that happen?

She flinches and turns her head. “Mr. Holmes, I was just talking to John about some odds and ends.”

“Yes. I can see what you are doing. Leave.”

She looks at John and slowly stands. “John.”

He manages to force a please past numb lips, which is enough to get her to move away from him. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to watch her leave and does not open them until he feels Sherlock standing next to him.

“Tea, I should think, John.”

He nods and walks on someone else’s legs into the kitchen. He lets his mind focus on the simple task of filling a kettle and setting out tea bags. He fills each mug perfectly, mechanically, watching everything from a distance.

Sherlock stays out of his way, but busies himself with moving the scattered mail on the kitchen table around. Hovering, but trying not to appear hovering. He wonders when in the two years he was gone Sherlock learned that skill. The Sherlock he knew before would have hated the wasted energy, the pointlessness of the task.

John is thankful for muscle memory and repetition as he prepares the tea and then grabs a package of biscuits and dumps them on a plate. It means he can step back away from everything and view the world down a tunnel. He watches his hands pass Sherlock a full mug, but doesn’t feel the heat of the ceramic.

“Thank you.” Sherlock sips slowly from his mug. He reaches for a biscuit and deliberately bites into it. He eats more now, too, this Sherlock. Purposeful, methodical, as if he is used to forcing himself to eat in case he doesn’t have the chance to later. He nudges the plate towards John and John mimics his movement. Bite. Chew. Swallow. Sip. Again. He keeps at it, ignoring the pain in his stomach, the dullness of his tongue, and works on pretending to be engaged and human.

He’s learned if he repeats an action enough times it’ll become second nature.

 

* * *

 

It takes him another two weeks to work up to it. Sherlock follows him, a permanent fixture now, a long morning shadow. The door sticks a bit and he has to lean into it in order to get it to move. He hasn’t been here in almost four months, not since he had hurriedly shoved fistfulls of clothes into his suitcase before fleeing to a hotel room. He didn’t want anything else, didn’t need anything else. Now he struggles with boxes and plastic bags that he sets down in the middle of the dark, dusty living room.

“The kitchen?” Sherlock removes his scarf and coat and places them on the back of John’s chair.

“Norah already handled that.” A book sits on the end table, a comb tucked between the pages to mark the page. An empty vase stands watch on the mantlepiece.  He remembers buying her flowers just before she died. Their flat has become a monument, a museum of things that were once but are no more. Dust clings to every surface and in that moment, he wants to wipe everything clean, remove every mark of them from the surface of the world.

“John?”

“Yeah. Just. You start in here and I’ll do the bedroom.” He grabs a bag and marches, back straight, arms close, towards the bedroom.

“Is there anything you want to keep?”

John looks around once more and shakes his head. “No.”

Once there, he flings open the closet and grabs armfuls of clothes, shoving them blindly into the bag. He stops only long enough to tie one bag off, snap open another, and move to the wardrobe. He steadfastly doesn’t think about the last time he was in here, standing frozen in front of her clothes and wondering what you were supposed to bury your wife in. Was there a list of rules for that? Did fashion gurus have something to say about appropriate colors for the season? It seems ridiculous now how long he had stood just rubbing a blouse back and forth between his fingers, wondering if it went with the skirt he had already picked out. Eventually someone had taken the decision out of his hands and now he cannot even remember what they buried her in.

He moves methodically around the room, only stopping to fetch a box from the living room to place her jewelry in. Her mother can handle that, divide it up, and hand it out.

It’s the bedside table that finally stops him in his tracks. He wrenches the drawer open and, of all things, it’s the condoms that set him off. The box is half-empty; a couple of hastily discarded wrappers are shoved to the back of the drawer; the bottle of lube has leaked. It’s the last remnant of shared passion, a tableau of fading touches and dulling taste. He sits down hard on the bed and cries silently. Through his tears, he can see Sherlock’s silhouette just past the door, but he moves away as soon as John takes notice of him.

He gives himself five minutes and then rubs his sleeve hard against his cheeks. Slapping his thighs, he stands, grabs the full bags and hauls them into the other room.

Sherlock is purposefully turned away, carefully placing a picture in a small pile on John’s chair.

“Right. I think this lot can be donated. The rest can be binned.” He comes to stand next to Sherlock and stares down at the pile. “What’s this then?”

“Things that you will want to keep.”

“I told you I don’t want to keep any of it.” John grits his teeth and focuses on the bunch and flex of the muscles along his jawline instead of the angry burn of tears trying to make themselves known.

“I know. But these are things that you will want to have in a few months, that you will wish you had kept.” Sherlock speaks with a quiet authority and John wonders for the first time what things must have been like for Sherlock in the past two years, what he had wished he could have taken with him. He fights the impulse to think about if Sherlock would have wanted anything of his in those two years. The thought feels like a betrayal, sharp and angry between his ribs. Not here. Not now.

John sighs and doesn’t bother to ask him how he knows what he will want to look at. It’s a small pile anyway, something he can shove in a box under his bed, and not have to think about. Sherlock takes another picture off the wall and studies it; his eyes flick back and forth over it, no doubt determining exactly when and where it was taken. Probably could tell what they had for dinner, John thinks.

John doesn’t have to look at the photograph to know which one it is. Last year. March. Mary had run through a rainstorm and was drenched, her shirt sticking to her body. She was smiling brilliantly at the camera despite being frozen to the bone. After he had taken the picture, they had made love on the sofa and didn’t bother to put clothes on until the next day.

“You would have hated her,” he says.

Sherlock puts the picture on the pile. “Yes. I would have.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

Someone is trying to knock down the door to his flat. John reaches for his gun before he is even fully awake when he remembers that Mary asked him to get rid of the gun because it made her nervous. He rolls out of bed, landing on the balls of his feet, and grabs the closest heavy object, which turns out to be dictionary he keeps close by while doing crossword puzzles. As he nears his front door, the pounding tapers off and is replaced with a very slurred: “John.”

John throws the door open and it quickly becomes apparent that the tapping had tapered off because Sherlock had decided that the door was perfect for leaning on.

“Ah, good. You’re here,” Sherlock says and promptly pitches forward into John’s arms.

“Bloody hell--” John scrambles, dropping the book with a thud, and just barely manages to keep Sherlock from face planting on to his floor. Sherlock is a heavy, lax weight against him. The weight he had lost has been replaced and then some (Mrs. Hudson’s doing-- had to have been).

“I’ve seem to misplaced my feet. The ones at the end of my legs. Not the ones in the fridge. Those are still there. Don’t be stupid, John. They would be terrible for walking on. Missing most of the toes on the left one. ” Sherlock’s face is pressed hard against John’s shoulder, muffling his voice, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He pats John with one hand; the heavy thump of a cast smacks against John’s ribs.

“You’ve done a runner, haven’t you?” John hefts Sherlock up, careful of the wrist on his right arm. He gets no response beyond a muffled sentence about thieves named Anderson that makes little sense.

They trip a few times on the way to the kitchen, but John finally manages to manhandle Sherlock’s not particularly cooperative body into a chair. John continues to nod and hum in response to what Sherlock is saying, trying to keep him talking while he figures out what the hell has happened to Sherlock this time. Gently running his fingers through Sherlock’s hair reveals a knot behind his ear. Sherlock flinches under his touch.

“Sorry.” He continues his search, but finds nothing other than the knot on his head. Concussion, hopefully mild, but he is going to need the light on to actually give a full assessment. He flicks on the kitchen light and grabs the first aid kit from under the sink. When he turns around, Sherlock is staring dejectedly down at the floor.

“Did they take them? Why did they take them?” The stare turns from dejected to penetrating as though Sherlock is trying to deduce his shoelaces. John follows the line of his gaze and that is when he notices that Sherlock’s shoes are missing and there is blood smeared across his kitchen floor.

“Jesus.” He kneels and gently pulls one of Sherlock’s feet into his hands, cradling the heel in his palm. The skin is cold and a little too bluish white for his liking, not frostbite-- thank god it isn’t cold enough for that-- but there is a reason why Sherlock keeps bundled up ten months out of the year. Come to think of it, now that they are no longer pressed against one another, a fine tremor begins to run through Sherlock. “Right. Okay, one thing at a time. You aren’t about to pass out on me, are you?”

Sherlock looks at him, eyes grey and tired, and very slowly shakes his head. In the light, his pupils are slightly sluggish. Definitely a concussion and definitely a little drugged.

He quickly assesses first one foot and then the other; abrasions, dirt, bits of gravel, and finally the culprit for the bleeding: a nasty looking gash on the arch of his left foot. Whatever caused it is gone, but a quick look shows the cut to not be too deep. Easy enough to take care of here.

He grabs a blanket from the other room and drapes it around Sherlock’s shoulders. The blanket is greeted with a quiet hum of pleasure; Sherlock tugs it close, bruised knuckles standing out against the white material. The lack of chattiness is worrying and propels John to move quickly. He throws quick glances over his shoulder as he washes his hands, snaps on a pair of gloves from his kit, and then resumes his position at Sherlock’s feet. Sherlock’s eyes are closed, though he is obviously still aware of his surroundings as he doesn’t jerk in surprise at the sudden touch of John’s latex covered hand.

“Head hurt?”

“Six.”

“Right. Nauseous?”

“Not anymore.” The anymore is said in such a way that John hopes there isn’t a puddle of vomit out in the hallway.

“Last tetanus shot?”

“Seattle. October.”

“Hurt anywhere else?” John pauses in his cleaning on the wound when Sherlock doesn’t answer immediately. Of course, of course, the great, giant, bloody idiot wouldn’t mention that he was hurt somewhere else. He tightens his grip on Sherlock’s heel and then takes a slow, deep breath. “Sherlock, if you are hurt beyond what I am dealing with now, you need to tell me.”

“They punched me. More than one. My ribs. Nothing broken. Already checked out.”

“Yeah, well I think I’ll be checking them all the same once I am done keeping you from bleeding all over the place.” He finishes cleaning the wound, pinches it closed, cracks a vial of medical glue open and seals the wound shut. “Going to have to keep off your foot for a few days. Luckily you managed to avoid doing too much damage to the right one. Lots of hopping about like a bunny rabbit in your future.”

Sherlock gives a faint hum, head nodding forward. “Bluebell.”

John smiles because Sherlock can’t see him. It’s the first time any mention has been made of old cases and it rolls off so easily from Sherlock’s tongue that it almost feels like things are normal. “Don’t think you’ll be glowing in the dark.”

Sherlock opens one eye to study him. “Pity.”

John’s response is interrupted by the ring of his mobile. Four in the morning is no time to be calling people, but then it also isn’t a time to be knocking down doors. Two years and some change and he has gotten used to silly things like a solid night’s sleep. He manages to answer it just before his voicemail can pick up. “Hello?”

“John. Sorry, I know it’s late, but have you seen Sherlock?”

Tucking the phone between his chin and shoulder, he nudges Sherlock to sit up straight and pulls back the blanket to get at his shirt. “Yeah, he’s here.”

Lestrade huffs out a sigh of relief. “Christ. Will you tell him to not do that?”

“Shirt off.”

“Pardon?”

“Sorry. Not you, Greg. Talking to Sherlock.” He hisses in sympathy at the landscape of bruises across Sherlock’s chest when he pulls back his shirt.

“Is he alright? Crazy bastard ran off as soon as they put the cast on his arm.”

“A bit loopy, but okay. Mind telling me what happened to his shoes?” He ran his hand along Sherlock’s ribs, feeling for any abnormalities. Thankfully there are none, nothing but bruises, which will be painfully enough come morning.

“We had to take them as evidence, along with his coat-- don’t ask-- and he wandered off before I could find him something to cover his feet and give him a ride home.”

“That would explain the state of his feet. Do you need to talk to him?”

“No, no. We got his statement. Just if he remembers anything more, make sure he comes by or at least texts me.”

“Sure thing. G’night, Greg.” Tossing the phone onto the table, he runs a critical eye over his friend. “Bed.”

Tucking Sherlock up against him, they manage to limp their way to John’s bed. Sherlock ungracefully pitches forward, burrowing his face into John’s pillow.

Sherlock looks at him with one blurry eye open. “This is your fault.”

“Oh? I made you walk here without any shoes on?”

Sherlock hatefully punches at a pillow and glares at it as if it is to blame for his current predicament. “I hate this place.”

“Well, good thing it’s me living here instead of you, isn’t it?” No answer is forthcoming. Thinking Sherlock has already fallen asleep, he shakes his head and perches on the edge of the bed. In the darkness, he can just barely make out Sherlock’s features. Dark circles and limp hair-- he’s been pushing himself on a case until he is dead on his feet. Something he hasn’t mentioned to John. Nothing new there, though. They don’t talk about cases anymore.

Sherlock snorts, shaking himself awake, and tries to focus on John’s face. “‘s why I don’t like it.”

Baker Street is another thing they don’t talk about. An unspoken agreement was reached at some point, though John doesn’t remember when-- or really why right now-- that Sherlock wouldn’t bother him about moving back to the flat they had once shared. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss it, but he has wounds to lick and heal before he is ready to move again.

“Budge over. You are mad if you think I am laying on the floor all night.” John settles down and falls into a light sleep at the sound of Sherlock breathing deep and even.

 

* * *

 

_Mary’s hands are everywhere, leaving goose bumps across his skin with each pass. The sofa springs creak loudly underneath them as she adjusts her position on his lap, teeth nipping at his mouth, biting down hard on his lip. He digs his fingers into her back, pulling her closer, crushing her against his chest. He shifts and tips her back onto the cushions, stretches himself on top of her. Her damp hair clings to her forehead, and the feel of it under his hand when he pushes a strand out of her eyes is silk and heaven._

_She leans forward, lips brushing across his ear. “Heaven doesn’t exist anymore.”_

_“No, please” he sobs._

_“And Hell just keeps going on forever.”_

_He buries his face in her neck, desperate for the scent of peaches, the warmth of her skin on his tongue, wills it to be there. All he can smell is smoke; all he can taste is ashes._

 

He doesn’t wake up with a snap and gasp. Instead he slowly becomes aware that he was asleep and now is no longer. His head pounds unpleasantly as he shifts his face away from his tear dampened pillow, grimacing when it sticks to his cheek. Sherlock is laying on his side and watching him with an expression John can’t quite name. It’s apology and acceptance wrapped in the odd Sherlock-brand of fondness. He doesn’t look away, though John wishes he would.

“Come home,” Sherlock says.

“I am home, in case you haven’t noticed. You’re in my bed right now. Hogging the blankets, I might add.” He forces a smile and acts dumb, which causes Sherlock to grimace.

“No, you aren’t. You haven’t been in months.”

John rolls away from him and stares at the ceiling. He imagines his room tucked away on the upper floor, a nest that he could hide in until Sherlock forced him awake in the middle of the night to go on some mad chase through London. He’d maybe hang a picture of Mary next to his window and every night stare at it until his stomach no longer hurt. He could forget about fresh cut flowers and the smell of peaches and replace it with half-filled beakers and rotting toes in the sugar bowl. Would it be moving backwards or just completing a cycle? Something in him decides without him that he doesn’t care either way because he hears himself say: “Yeah, yeah.”


	3. Chapter 3

She has perfect shitty timing, his Harry. He supposes she could have fallen apart while he was dealing with the funeral, so thank Christ for that, but he’s just starting to fall back into the rhythm of having a life at all when she leaves a voicemail on his phone at five in the afternoon.

“John. Fuck. Johnny. Pick up the phone. You never answer your phone. Never have time for me. ‘s not right. I’m your fucking sister. I’m blood, not that ponce.”

He doesn’t listen to the rest. It’s nothing new, just variations on an tired theme. Drunk Harry, like his father, teeters back and forth between viciousness and crippling depression. There is no middle ground, no loving. It’s why Harry is the way she is: at her core she is too much like their father and she has never forgiven herself for it.

His joints are filled with frozen grit, grinding away and setting his heavy head to pounding; everything aches these days. He shoves his arms into his jacket.

“I don’t think I’ll be back tonight. Don’t wait up.”

Sherlock doesn’t look up from his experiment. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Of course not. Stupid of him to think Sherlock would. They aren’t like that, at least not when it comes to silly everyday things.

It takes him nearly an hour to get to Harry’s and by the time he unlocks the door, he knows that she is already curled up in the bathroom. There is a sad predictability to Harry’s drinking and he is quietly thankful he managed to sidestep the anger, though he isn’t looking forward to sitting on a hard tiled floor until he can convince her to move to the bedroom, followed by him sleeping in a chair next to her bed.

He grabs a water bottle from the fridge. His boots thud against the floor, echoing in the wide space. He has always hated this place. Too open, too large, too cold.  She needs to live somewhere smaller, somewhere that doesn’t shout back her own loneliness, but he supposes that is too much to ask of Harry. This place has become a haven and a cage, a reminder and punishment of a life that did not work out.

He finds her just where he thought he would. Curled up on the bathroom rug, Harry manages to look both indescribably young and old at the same time. There is a vulnerability to her, tucked in the lines of her face, a weariness that hangs about her shoulders. Maybe it’s why he’s never been able to just walk away from her, never been able to ignore a call in the middle of the day or night. His dad-- well, there are reasons why John hadn’t cried too hard at his funeral.

“C’mon then. Up you go. Get some water in you and to bed, yeah?” Getting her sitting was the easy part because he could easily curl up against her side and keep her propped up. He cracks the bottle open and wraps her hands around it. “Nice and easy.”

She spills some of it down her front, but most of it ends up in her mouth with the help of John’s steady hand. They sit in silence until John’s legs start to grow numb.

“Did she love me, Johnny?” Harry blinks slowly at him.

“Of course she did.” Her hair is sticking to her face, clinging to a tacky line of lip gloss smeared across her lips and one of her cheeks. He gently untangles her hair, brushing it away.

“She left me, though.”

A mutual fleeing, more like. Two people ill suited to love one another and neither one of them willing to fight to stay anymore. But when Harry was like this, it was always Clara who was the one who left. He sighs. “Yeah, she did.”

“‘s worse. Than what you got.”

John hand stills on the back of her head.

“‘cause you knew she still loved you. It’s better.”

He doesn’t argue with her. He’s learned when to spot a fruitless argument; she won’t remember anything in the morning at any rate.

“Still alone, though. Us Watsons. Always alone. Think we deserve it,” she says and at the moment John can’t find the words because tucked in that cold little bathroom, he does feel alone. Painfully alone to deal with something that he should be able to fix but can’t. He doesn’t feel like a doctor or soldier or even a full grown man staring into his sister’s blurry eyes. He’s a lost little boy, trying to pick up the pieces up of someone else’s mess.

He swallows hard. “Can’t be alone if there are two of us, right?” It sounds thin and weak even to his own ears. Harry begins to sob.

“I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean those things. You know I didn’t mean those things, right Johnny? Didn’t mean ‘em.”

“Sure, Harry.” He tugs her close and rests his chin on her head.

They never do make it to bed.

 

* * *

 

By the time he gets back to Baker Street, he’s been gone for more than a day. A long night on Harry’s bathroom floor followed by a long day at the clinic has his legs moving like they are filled with wet sand. Each step up the stairs beats out the same word: alone, alone, alone. He knows he’s not. Not really. There are people in his life that care about him, but that doesn’t fill the cold space next to him in bed, doesn’t stop the lingering dull ache in between his ribs.

Right now he wants to just forget the way Harry had looked at him last night. It looked a bit too much like his face in the mirror every morning: grey, tired, sagging. A bit like someone living out their time in solitary. Hunger lingers behind his eyes; not the belly-ache of a missed meal, but the bone-gnawing grim reality of never being satiated, never being fulfilled. He has forgotten what it is like to be full of anything other than emptiness.

He shrugs out of his jacket and pops open the fridge, nudging leftovers out of the way to get at a bottle of beer. He raises the bottle, unopened and already slick with promise, and stares into the darkened kitchen. A line a water trails down his wrist, towards his elbow. It raises the hair on his arm. He flexes his fingers and feels the paper label on the bottle bunch up and tear under the persistent push of his thumb.

“You’re not her,” Sherlock says just on the edge of the light.

He flinches. “You sure about that?”

Sherlock edges around him and gently tugs the bottle from his hand. “Yes.”

“Funny. Sure feel like her. Come home from a long day and the first thing I do is grab a beer.” Christ, he spent half the night keeping his sister from drowning in her own vomit and before he has even said hello to his flatmate, his head is buried in the fridge looking for the thing with the highest alcohol content he can find. His hand still feels wet, a lingering unwanted caress; he wipes it against his jeans, once, twice, feels the way the denim burns against his palm.  Everything else about him feels bone dry and brittle, a dry twig dying to ignite.

“There is a difference.” Sherlock opens the door and sets the beer back on the shelf.

“And yet you are taking it away from me.” John stares at the third button of Sherlock’s shirt. It strains against the fabric as Sherlock shifts. It’s dangerous, that button, but safer than meeting Sherlock’s eyes.

“I am hurrying along your decision. You need someone to tell you that you are not your sister and that you are not an alcoholic. I hate stating the obvious, but here we are.” He shuts the door, a firm period on the end of his sentence.

“How do you know I’m not?” It sounds like a gauntlet thrown.  He finally meets Sherlock’s eyes.  Years lay heavy between them. He licks his lips, trying to get an apology to form on the tip of his tongue, but it sticks somewhere in the back of his throat.

Sherlock is the first to break. He glances down and away.  “I know because we are having this conversation at all.” His hand gently comes to rest on top of John’s, stopping the rubbing John didn’t realize he was still doing, and withdraws before John can make more of the gesture.

 

 

* * *

 

He marks his days by meals eaten and clothes washed and learns to breathe in and out again. It’s old ground by now and he half-expects for the grief to fade quicker; after all he did this less than three years ago with Sherlock. Shouldn’t it be less sharp? Less jagged? He waits for it to fade, but it doesn’t; it cyclical, ebbing and waning, but always there. Some nights he stares at Mary’s picture, trying to recall the exact sound of her humming offkey. Other nights he can’t even bear to look at the photograph and shoves it in his bedside drawer. Those nights his bedroom feels too large and he far too small and he shakes with impotent rage.

There are cases and one disastrous date that he hadn’t been ready for but forced himself to go on anyway. Through it all, he feels like he is floating, disconnected. He is too slow and the rest of the world is too fast.

And everyone is so damn careful around him. Lestrade doesn’t mention his budding relationship with Molly and tries to hide his smile when his mobile dings with a text message. Mrs. Hudson putters around him, always there, a mug full of tea waiting for him when he walks through the door. Fuck, Sally has even taken to smiling at him.

The worst is Sherlock, of course. Because they have both changed and even months of living together doesn’t seem to ease the tension between them as they tiptoe around one another. Seeing Sherlock walk softly and speak gently makes John’s blood boil because he needs Sherlock to be himself because John can’t right now. He needs insults flung at him fast and without remorse. He needs someone to grab him and drag him through alleyways. He needs his heart to pound hard and fast to remind him that he is still breathing and that there is more than just the grey fog that fills his head.

He needs a fucking brawl.

He knows, even as he reaches for Sherlock that first time, that nothing good can come from it. But Sherlock is there and John is here and the space between them is too much, far too much, and he’s been so fucking alone and he can’t remember the taste of Mary’s fucking awful burnt eggs or the way she yelled at him and John needs to feel something other than nothing; he needs fingers on his skin and in him, and is desperate for sweat and musk and slick and-- Christ.

He slams into Sherlock and scrambles at his buttons. The long line of Sherlock’s torso presses against him, each muscle tense and rigid. It feels exhilarating to know that he has surprised this man, this wonderful, crazy, stupid man. The feeling pushes him on, ignoring the little shout in his brain that says, _What the hell are you doing?_

“John?”

“Shut up. Just shut up.” He isn’t sure who is speaking to, but continues to pull and tug at Sherlock’s shirt. Suddenly his fingers don’t want to cooperate and buttons are beyond his ability. He’s shaking like a damned teenager and he can’t get it to stop.

In frustration, John crowds Sherlock back and back until his heels hit the bottom stair and he trips backwards with a huff. They land in a tangle of limbs on the stairs, not a soft landing judging by the grunt Sherlock gives, but Sherlock quiets any apologies by finally reacting to John's unexpected assault. Fingers slide through the short hairs on John’s neck and grip hard before forcing his head back. Not bothering to be the least bit gentle, Sherlock bites his chin, his neck, his Adam’s apple, before taking a sharp turn to suck on his earlobe, tongue flicking out and ghosting over the shell. It pulls a moan out of John that feels like it reverberates from his toes and sets his hips to a steady rocking pace.

Sherlock releases one of his hands from its knuckle-white grip and shoves it between their bodies. Where John’s hands are clumsy little things, Sherlock’s are deft and agile. He continues his attack on John’s ear, tongue flicking, licking, fucking, while his hand pulls free the button on John’s trousers and then snakes under his hand under John’s pants.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” John’s hips and mouth are caught on the same feedback loop, both chasing one another. When Sherlock finally wraps his hand around John, all the air leaves John’s lungs. He props himself up, one hand on the stair next to Sherlock’s head, and the other squeezing hard into Sherlock’s side. He wants to bruise him, mark him, dig deep into that which makes Sherlock _Sherlock_ and write his name large.

Sherlock stretches. His back arches, head tipping back as far as he can manage in the cramped stairwell, pulling his neck taut like a stringed bow. John watches Sherlock’s pulse beat trapped just under his tight skin; he sympathizes with that surge of blood, desperately pounding away, trapped. He leans down, arm shaking from taking his weight, and licks a long stripe up Sherlock’s neck; sweat greets his tongue and fills his nostrils. The hint of what Sherlock tastes like is not enough; he nibbles there, just hard enough to make Sherlock shudder and cant his pelvis towards John, and then John begins to suck hard, willing the skin under his lips to bruise.

“John.” John can feel the hum of Sherlock’s voice against his lips. He shifts and presses his lips further down, nosing aside Sherlock’s shirt. Sherlock’s hand pauses for a moment as his breath picks up. Suddenly impatient, Sherlock yanks his hand out from John’s pants and shoves his own trousers and pants out of the way, squirming slightly in the space between John and the stairs. The first feel of Sherlock’s cock brushing against his own causes John to bite down on Sherlock’s collarbone, producing a sharp yelp from him that turns into a moan.

“Please,” Sherlock says, leg hooking around John’s calf and then wrapping his hand around them both.

“Yeah. Just give me-- Fuck. You.” His brain seems to have gone completely offline, tangling his tongue around everything he wants to say: _Faster. Harder. More._ He finally manages to unglue his hand from its place on Sherlock’s hip and joins Sherlock’s, encouraging him to pick up the pace he has set.

It should be strange; he hasn’t held another man’s cock since uni and this is Sherlock, but it’s blood boiling fantastic, maddening. He feels like he is charging headlong into combat, breath coming out of him like punches. Sherlock’s cock feels thick and warm in his hand and pressed against his own. Sherlock’s fingers tighten, skating the edge of pleasure and pain, as John’s hips snap forward. Sweat begins to pool under his shirt, trickling down the back of his legs. He watches a bead of sweat collect along Sherlock’s top lip, pace stuttering as Sherlock’s tongue flicks out to wipe it away.

There is a whine building in John’s head and a tremor shaking his legs. His knees won’t forgive him in the morning, but the sight of a blush creeping up Sherlock’s neck and tinting his face a deep red spurs him on. Sherlock bites his bottom lip and bends forward, a grunt punching out of him, and John feels his hand grow slick, his shirt damp. Sherlock’s grip grows limp and he falls backward, mouth lax and open on a silent moan.

It’s the sight of Sherlock’s open, lovely, inviting mouth, lips puffy from being bitten, that does it. John sits back on his knees and pumps his cock, hard and fast, his vision tunneling on Sherlock’s tongue flicking out and tracing his bottom lip. With a final gasp, he comes, blood thundering, deafening, in his ears.

John pants into the ensuing damning silence.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

_They’re on a boat, a little thing that is half rotting, and might just end up at the bottom of the lake if he shifts wrong. The lake’s a yellowish-brown, moss and algae and who knows what else floating along the surface. The murky water ripples as he casts his line into the depths again. It’s quiet; the usual sounds of buzzing dragonflies and mosquitos are muted. With the sun directly overhead, he thinks it should be hot, sweltering even, but like the noises, the heat is there but not. He’s not sweating, but knows that he should be, that the skin on his nose should be turning a bright, horrible red. He turns and looks at his father, whose eyes are hidden by a faded, beaten grey fishing hat. It is not his father as he knew him as a grown man, but the father he remembers as a child: steady, sure, a quiet sort of man that John wanted to grow up to be. This is his father before he fell into a bottle and never came out._

_John starts to say something about grabbing some sunscreen, maybe follow it up with a joke about his father’s choice in head gear, but instead says: “We don’t seem to be going anywhere.”_

_His father reels the line in, and casts it out once more, eyes never leaving the water. The sun shifts overhead, now lost somewhere behind the tree line, throwing the boat into shadow. The silence stretches out into dusk, nightfall, dawn. The line on his father’s fishing pole finally jerks once, twice, a third time._

_“We’re all lost, son.”_

_In the distance, he hears a woman scream._

* * *

 

His knees hit the tile floor even as the dream clings to him. His stomach clenches and acid bubbles up his throat, causing him to retch. Over the sound of being sick, he hears the bathroom door creak open.

“John?”

In between heaves, he gasps out: “Fine. ‘m fine.”

He jerks and tries to twist away from Sherlock’s hands when they grab his shoulders. “John, you’re finished. Sit back. That’s it. Breathe. You are having a panic attack.”

“Fuck you. I know what a panic attack feels like,” John says, still trying to squirm away from Sherlock’s grip. _Too close, too close, can’t breathe._

“Well, then you know perfectly well that is what is happening. Oh for God’s sake!” With a huff, Sherlock lets go of him, letting John cram himself between the toilet and the bath. Sherlock watches him with a critical eye, squats just out of arm’s reach, and takes an annoyingly full breath. “If you pass out, shall I tuck you in my bed? I don’t think I can manage carrying you up the stairs.” Another purposeful breath. Fucking wanker. “I suppose I could just deposit you back on the sofa, but I don’t think your shoulder would thank me for it.” In. Out. John follows his lead without thought and feeling slowly returns in his tinglingly hands.

“It wasn’t a panic attack,” John says, voice rough. He stares at Sherlock’s bare chest, at the way his pyjama bottoms stretch snugly around his thighs, at the small collection of red and purple bruises decorating his collarbone and neck. His throat tightens.

“You took up late night genuflecting in my absence? Might I recommend a room with a rug? It would be easier on you, given the current state of your knees.” Sherlock’s tone remains stubbornly neutral up until the point when he shifts his stance. A wince flickers across his face before being tamped down. “Really, John, could we find a more comfortable place to have this discussion?”

“No need to discuss anything. We aren’t having a discussion.”

“Really? So you are not having a panic attack brought on by a nightmare-- most likely concerning your dead wife-- just a few hours after we had our first sexual encounter?”

“Fucking hell, Sherlock. Could we maybe lay off bringing up my wife in the same sentence as saying we just had sex?”

“Why? It wouldn’t change what happened. You were looking for human contact and I obliged.”

“Oh, ta. Really what I needed to hear.” John laughs, choked and bitter. “You _obliged_.” His stomach tenses again.

“What would you prefer I say? That my motives for getting you to move back to Baker Street were more than friendly concern? That I have stayed my hand a thousand times from grabbing hold of you and wrapping my mouth around your cock because you needed time?” He grits his teeth. “Shall I continue? Shall I talk about how I thought of you every miserable night for the two years I was gone only to come back and find that you had gotten married in my absence? Or about how much I want to absolutely hate your wife but cannot bring myself to because she kept you alive and sane and I find myself indebted to and jealous of a dead woman?” Sherlock shuts his mouth with a resounding click.

All the air in John’s lungs leaves in one great rush. “That’s... that’s... uh.”

“Come to bed, John. We can talk about it in the morning.” He stands. With his back turned to the room, John can see a long bruise across Sherlock’s shoulder blades, a perfect match to the sharp edge of the stairs. “Or not. The choice is yours, of course.”

But it isn’t and it never was, John thinks. This is where it was always going to end up. He listens to Sherlock shuffle back out to his bedroom, hears the click of the lamp going out. John sits there in the gloom and tries to find answers in the grout between the tiles. None greet him. He breathes, slow and deep, and swallows around the foul taste in his mouth. He waits until his arse goes numb then stumbles back to bed, coward that he is.

 

* * *

 

In the morning, John stares at the long line of Sherlock’s back and the one curl that sits just so on his nape. It’s a finger beckoning him, taunting him to dive his nose into the curled mess and breathe deep. He fists his hand in the bed sheet separating them, fighting back the urge to press and pull and thrust. His cock twitches in interest even as he rolls away from Sherlock. Fuck, what is wrong with him? He isn’t doing this. He’s not. He already knows things he has no right to know about Sherlock: the way his eyes crinkle just before he comes; the dusting of freckles along his shoulders, hard to see at a distance, but obvious up close; the way the skin on his neck felt under John’s tongue.

“Lestrade texted.”

John flinches. Had Sherlock been awake this entire time?

“Dead body. Should be interesting. At least worth getting out of bed.” In a flurry, Sherlock throws back the sheet and jumps out of bed, mobile already firmly in hand. “Come along, John. I told him we would be there in an hour.”

John sighs, stares up at the ceiling, and not for the first time in the past twenty-four hours, wonders what the hell he is doing with his life. Since Mary died, he feels lost, drifting and aimless, and yet here he is stupidly yearning to press against Sherlock and soak up every last bit of heat he has, while still keeping one eye on the door. Ridiculous to make any more of it than an intense but ill-timed sexual encounter. Sherlock wants him because Sherlock’s very nature is possessive; John is his in the same way that the violin or a crime scene is. He has nothing to offer Sherlock. He is an angry shell of a man, more worthless than when they first met.  There can be nothing more to their relationship than what there is now. John can’t give any more than that.

“John, hurry up!”

He shoves the thoughts way, boxing them up and vowing to not open them again, as he pulls on his trousers.

 

* * *

 

The case is interesting (organ removal, no prints in sight, rooftop chase, and now: here) right up until the moment a gun goes off right next to John’s ear, deafening him. Blood trickles down his neck. Not an entire miss, then, but a graze along his ear. Even as it burns, he knocks the gun away and drives his fist, hard and fast, into the man’s gut, followed quickly by a hook to his jaw. The man crumbles, but John squats on him for good measure, shoving the gun out of arm’s reach.

He looks up then, grinning without meaning to, and sees Sherlock’s face change from shock to something incomprehensible. Three quick strides and he kneels next to John, bare hand gently touching John’s ear.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” He knows he is shouting, but his hearing is still strange and muffled.

Sherlock smiles and his hand brushes against John’s cheek and down his neck. He reaches out and helps John up, pulling him close and, for just a moment, tucks his fingers under John’s collar. The only way that John can think of to describe his touch is loving, shocking in its gentleness. It’s terrifying. He wonders when exactly that happened; this is more than the intense, possessive way Sherlock spoke to him of his feelings about John being with Mary. Hands resting on John’s neck, the look Sherlock gives him is one of deep, earnest caring and, for John, absolutely gut-wrenching. Christ, how did he miss that Sherlock actually _loved_ him?

John does not have time to find the answer before Lestrade rushes up to arrest the man. Lestrade flicks a brief look at the two of them, one eyebrow lifting in an unspoken question at how closely John and Sherlock are pressed to each other. John blushes and steps away from Sherlock, putting enough distance to avoid any more questioning looks. After that, John is too preoccupied with waving away concerns and letting the paramedics patch up his ear. He purposefully doesn’t meet Sherlock’s gaze again, too afraid to see what might be there this time.

Silence reigns between them all the way back to the flat and up the stairs. When the door clicks shut behind them, John stands for a moment, back against the door, and stares at the floorboards, watching the last bit of sunlight recede. The flat is dark; they had left this morning in a mad rush and not a single lamp is on. He hears Sherlock move around the room, the shuffle of him hanging up his coat, a folder being tossed without a care for the papers inside. They flutter to the floor and are left. Sherlock doesn’t move to turn on a lamp, but continues his march through the flat.

John finally lifts his head at the surprising sound of tea being made. So befuddled by the action, he doesn’t bother to remove his coat, but moves into the kitchen. He didn’t think Sherlock knew how to make tea, which is, of course, a ridiculous thought. Better to say that he never bothers to make tea, so why now? He is still trying to muddle through it when Sherlock hands him a full cup. John leans back against the table, trying to feign at casualness, before taking a sip.

The tea is surprisingly good, though not as sweet as he usually likes it, but it is hot and it was made for him as some sort of strange gesture, so he drinks it gladly. He darts glances at Sherlock, watching his mouth coming to rest against the lip of his cup. Sherlock’s lips pucker slightly as he blows across the steaming liquid; John quickly looks away, throat bobbing around the sudden pull of want. He can’t do this. It isn’t fair to Sherlock. John isn’t capable of anything more than a quick fuck and the look on Sherlock’s face at the crime scene told him that there is much more than that trying to grow between them. He won’t let it become more than it already has.

Just as he finishes his tea, Sherlock squats down in front of him, fingers resting on John’s hips. He presses his forehead against John’s crotch and sighs. The hot, humid air sends John’s blood pounding downward, drawn inescapably towards Sherlock. He sets his mug on the table, ceramic clattering against the surface, and then rests one shaking hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. He nudges at him, trying to get him to move, but Sherlock’s fingers simply dig into John’s hips, refusing to be budged. He gives up and rests his hand instead on Sherlock’s head; his other hand curls into a fist, nails digging into the table in attempt to keep his balance. Sherlock is by his very nature unbalancing and John feels dizzy with it.

He doesn’t stop the first press of lips against his crotch, though he should. He doesn’t stop Sherlock when he unbuttons his jeans and pulls them down, followed by his pants. The words crumble on his tongue at the brush of Sherlock’s hand against his cock and he knows in that moment that he is a selfish man. He is not sure he can love anyone, but he still craves the feeling of someone’s hands on him.

Sherlock’s mouth is still warm from the tea when it finally wraps around the head of John’s cock. John can’t look at him. The feeling alone of that delicious heat is almost enough to make him come on the spot. His hips jerk in spite of himself, driving his cock further into Sherlock’s mouth, and rather than pull away in annoyance, Sherlock stills and then hums in pleasure. A sigh leaves John in a shaky whoosh and he starts to back away, thumping into the table. He doesn’t get far. Sherlock’s fingers bite into John’s arse cheeks and pull him forward until John can feel the back of Sherlock’s throat fluttering against the urge to gag. John is held there for a beat, two, in exquisite torture before Sherlock eases him back until the head of John’s cock sits barely on his tongue. The table shudders again as Sherlock moves swiftly and unexpectedly, taking John fully into his mouth once more; John knocks the cup off the edge, only distantly hearing it shatter. Sherlock repeats the motion, an obscene slick slide of out and then roughly in, pushing John to fuck his mouth. Finally, John whimpers, curls his fingers tightly in Sherlock’s hair, and takes over.

Sherlock stills under him, save his hands which keep their tight grip on John, as if he is afraid that John will fade away from him. The sharp sting of Sherlock’s nails drives him, spurring him to push quick, short thrusts into Sherlock’s open mouth. John stares at a spot on the cabinets in front of him, still unable to look down at Sherlock. Even so, he can feel every inch of Sherlock: the red marks he is leaving every time John pulls back; the warmth radiating from his face as John pushes in; a harsh puff of breath brushing against John’s skin; the entire lean line of him seeking John out, drawn to him, no longer passive but pressing forward to meet John’s thrusts.

At that pace, it doesn’t take long. John tries to pull away, to warn Sherlock that he is about to come, but he is trapped, pinned by Sherlock arms, the persistent push of his mouth, and the table. One of Sherlock’s hands releases its death grip and wraps his fingers around John’s cock, his mouth and hand working John in tandem. Bending over Sherlock, John comes with a half-bitten moan. Sherlock swallows around him, sucking hard until John hisses from being overstimulated.

Only then, after the last tremors of his orgasm subside, does John looks down at him. Sherlock’s lips are puffy, his chin slick with spit, his hair a mess. The look that Sherlock gives him is the same one that John glimpsed at the crime scene: achingly open and terrified. Sherlock ducks his head and presses it against John’s thigh and nuzzles at the hair there.

“You have to know that you are not allowed to die,” Sherlock says.

John smoothes his hair down, letting his fingers work through the tangles he had caused. The gesture feels tender and John tries to let himself feel that tenderness. He closes his eyes and searches for warmth in him that he recognizes as love. His stomach twists in fear; both wanting to find it and afraid what will happens if he does.

 


	5. Chapter 5

_Weak sunlight is filtering through the kitchen windows, illuminating bits of twirling, dancing dust motes. He stretches his arms out over his head, hearing the satisfying pop of joints that haven’t moved in too long. He thinks maybe he has been sleeping for a very long time, but he doesn’t feel rested. The house is quiet save for the creaking of old wood settling. He moves through rooms he hasn’t seen in years. Following in the wake of memories, he gets lost in the sight of a perfect home that only really existed in the mind of a very small child._

_He finds his mother out back in the garden. She’s kneeling over tulip beds, arms covered in grey, dry soil. Each hole is filled with rotted, damp bulbs—miniature graves all in a row. He picks up a trowel and moves the earth over each bulb, working in tandem with her, covering decay and death with barren soil._

_He pauses and looks at her, watches how the washed out sunshine makes her look as muted and dead as the garden around him._

_“This isn’t how I remember it,” he says._

_She touches his face, gloves brushing dirt across his cheekbone. “You never really looked.”_

_Between the wooden slats of the fence, he sees the flash of brilliant sunshine and a familiar coat whipping past._

* * *

 

The image of Sherlock’s face--worried, terrified, loving-- plagues John’s thoughts the next day at work. He waves off concerned looks and offers to take over from a few of his colleagues. Making half-hearted jokes about needing to pay the bills, he dives head first into the files waiting for him when he walks through the door. His ear is nothing more than an inconvenience, though he lets Sarah think the reason why his brow seems to be in a permanent furrow is because of a lingering headache. The headache is there, but it has nothing to do with his ear and all to do with another sleepless night and the revelation of Sherlock’s affection for him.

He would be foolish to think that there isn’t some part of him trying to replace Mary with Sherlock. The two of them are irrevocably linked in his mind. He lost Sherlock, only to find Mary. He lost Mary, only to find Sherlock. The same part of him is terrified by what will happen if he loses Sherlock again. He would live through it, he knows, but there would be nothing to his life. He has glimpsed it before, that grey nothingness that fills and stretches days. If he went back to that, it would swallow him whole. There would be nothing to save. He would be wiped blank, a body moving around but his mind empty. He had barely survived the loss of Mary; he wouldn’t make it through losing another partner.

His mind sticks on the word ‘partner.’ Shame tangles with something he cannot name in his chest. He doesn’t feel capable of being anyone’s partner; he shouldn’t even want it.

But there is a large part of him that wants to fall into Sherlock and he wonders if that is enough: to want it. He would be lying if he tried to say he hadn’t loved Sherlock before. From the moment Angelo had handed him his cane back, John had loved Sherlock. The intensity of it shocked him at times and in the kitchen last night, he had seen that same intensity in Sherlock’s eyes.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t go back to the flat after work; instead he leaps at the chance to meet up with Lestrade for drinks. There is something steadying about Lestrade and John needs the quiet assurance right now.

They sit and watch a game on telly, bottles slowly gathering around them, each commenting on the sad state of their team until a lull in the action gives Lestrade a chance to steer the conversation elsewhere. John can tell by the way his nose scrunches up he has been trying to find a way to say what he has on his mind for the past hour.

“So I didn’t know you were,” Lestrade pauses.

“What?”

“Ya know.” He gestures vaguely at John.

“A rugby player?”

“No. Christ, you know what I mean.” He blushes, which John finds strangely hilarious on a man who has seen just about everything in his line of work. Lestrade takes a long pull from his beer bottle, searching for courage, before setting it down with a thud on the bar. He apparently finds his spine somewhere down in the bottle because his next words come out clipped and hurried: “Gay. I didn’t know you were gay.”

“Ah.” John nods and goes back to watching the game on the telly.

“Ah? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“Is there something I am supposed to say?” John glances at him out of the corner of his eye.

“Well, no. It’s just I’ve only ever seen you with women. I mean, I know what people in the paper like to say, but you just never seemed the type to--”

At this John turns, raises his eyebrows and lowers his chin. He finds it to be an effective way to get people to stop spouting stupid shit at him. Lestrade, thankfully, has the decency to look embarrassed.

“Right. I mean. What I was trying to say is: grats on that. You two look happy together.”

“Do we?” It sounds like a funny way of describing their relationship. Are they happy together? John isn’t even sure if he is happy; he thinks of grinning after taking down that man earlier and recognizes it as an echo of happiness. Surprising to feel that after so many months. Is he happy as part of the entity known as Sherlock and John? Can it even be said that they are together? John chuckles, but even to his own ears it sounds forced and off beat. He swallows another mouthful of beer and shakes his head. “It’s not like that. Not really. We aren’t-- I mean, there hasn’t been. Fucking hell, I don’t know.”

“Can I give you a bit of advice?” Lestrade pushes his empty bottle away and turns to face him. “I don’t pretend to know what you’ve been through. You can’t go comparing grief and I wouldn’t want to anyway. But when my wife left, it shattered me. Felt like I had been punched right between the eyes.” John nods. He remembers the way Lestrade had looked that night he showed up on their doorstep: washed out and wrinkled from too many nights spent at the office trying to avoid the inevitable fallout at home. “I didn’t see much point in picking up the pieces. Seemed like a waste of energy. I had work and that was enough. Until it wasn’t.” He waves, clumsy, as if trying to dispel his thoughts. “Hell, what I am trying to say is: If you think you could be happy with Sherlock, what’s it going to hurt to give it a try?”

“A lot. I’m not. Well, I’m not sure how much use I’d be in a relationship.” It’s not quite guilt that he feels at the thought of being with someone other than Mary, though there is still a part of him that feels like every touch, every lingering glance, he has shared with Sherlock is somehow cheating. No, he feels like he should be the one who is strong and steady, the one who handles things when they go wrong, but he is too exhausted, too worn down, to even approach being anyone’s equal.

“Well, I’m not saying you get married, but Christ, have you seen the way he looks at you? He keeps smiling. Or at least I think it is smiling. His lips do a weird little tick when he thinks you aren’t looking.”

“Sure that isn’t some sort of nerve damage?” He tries to make light of it. Hell, how did he manage not to see this for so long? What is he going to do?

Lestrade laughs. “I’d think you’d know being a doctor and all.” He nudges him. “Just let him take care of you for a bit, yeah?”

A quiet settles between them, filled by the shouts of other people cheering on their team. The unease in John’s stomach settles a little; no longer a roiling storm of acid, but a slight tickle of nervousness. John lets Lestrade’s words roll around in his mind. He’s never been particularly good at letting other people take care of him, but he can’t deny the part of him that stops its desperate, lonely howl at the thought of someone else handling things for a little while. It feels strange to think that Sherlock Holmes would ever be considered as someone that would spare the time to take care of another person, but John knows that is exactly what Sherlock has been trying to do ever since he returned and John has been unconsciously fighting it the entire time. Tense, waiting for the next blow to land, always refusing to drop his shoulders, even for just a moment. Maybe Lestrade is right; maybe he needs to let things take their course. It sounds frightening, giving that last bit of control, of territory, over to Sherlock.

The game ends without John noticing. It takes a slap on the back from Lestrade to draw his attention back to where and when he is.

“All right, mate, I am off. Need a lift?”

“No, I’m good. Think I could use the walk back to clear my head.”

 

* * *

 

He gives himself the twenty minutes on the way back to the flat to find his courage. It’s tattered, but he clings to it as he climbs the stairs. They groan under his weight and he blushes, skin hot at the sound that it brings to mind. Just before he opens the door to the flat, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He pushes the door open as he lets the breath out.

Sherlock is sitting in his chair, curled impossibly over a book, looking more like a collection of limbs rather than a man. He doesn’t look up. John had hoped to find the last of his courage in Sherlock’s welcome, but finding none, he feels dismissed. John starts to move to the kitchen, shoulders fighting to curl inward, when Sherlock’s voice stops him.

“She said you were easy to love.”

John freezes, knowing that there is no need to ask who she is. He tries to pinpoint when Sherlock would have spoken with Mary, but up until this moment he had no idea they had ever even met. “When…?” He lets the question hang between them.

“Just after I returned. She was there.” Sherlock waves at the couch. “Waiting for me. I think it was her way of telling me that she would end me if I hurt you again.”

John chuckles, sad and lost. Despite her size, his Mary would have done just that. God, he would have loved to see the pair of them together. It hurts.

Sherlock closes the book and stands. He moves closer, each step hesitant, until he is close enough for John to feel the heat of him. His right hand caresses John’s bandaged ear, so light that John can barely feel it at all, and then drops to John’s side, tracing a brilliant, electric line down his arm and to his knuckles. His other hand comes up to cup the back of John’s neck and he leans into John’s space, resting his forehead against John’s. He makes no move to kiss him, simply breathes in John’s air. Time becomes jumbled; they stand there for perhaps seconds or hours-- John cannot tell which-- until John gradually sags against Sherlock. The warmth he finds there reassures him and calms the nervous tension that had been tingling in his hands.

Slowly, their noses brush and just as slowly, they fall into a kiss.  John tries to remember if they kissed in the stairwell and he supposes it is just like them to do things entirely out of order. It feels strange and new. Sherlock’s lips are just a little too firm; John’s a little too hesitant. They brush against one another, shy, unsure, and just this side of awkward. Their noses bump as both try to turn their heads to accommodate each other. A nervous laugh bubbles up John’s throat. Look at them: two grown men who can shag like rabbits but can’t even kiss properly.

At this, Sherlock pulls away, eyes studying John’s face. John schools his impulse to look away; instead, he meets Sherlock’s gaze. Blood burns and pounds just under his skin; he can feel a blush beginning to spread across his cheeks. Embarrassment and want war in his gut at Sherlock’s scrutiny. Sherlock hums and rubs his thumb in a slow, tight circle against John’s nape, urging the last of John’s muscles to relax and let him in. John can feel the blush deepening across his cheeks and down his neck, drawn hot to the surface by Sherlock’s simple touch. Sherlock’s thumb keeps moving, around and around, steady and sure, stirring the soft hairs along John’s neck. Each of John’s nerves feel like they are misfiring, twitching and confusing each signal in his body. His stomach tightens. Anxious desire builds in him until he nearly pants with it. He licks his bottom lip and then bites it to stop from asking, begging, Sherlock to do something.

Sherlock’s hand stills and cups John’s chin, thumb brushing against his bottom lip until John’s teeth let go. Sherlock shifts, head tilting and leaning forward, each movement slow and obvious, and there-- there. Sherlock’s lips come to rest against John’s, gently nudging John’s mouth open with a series of soft pecks. He opens for Sherlock, letting him lead the kiss. His tongue slips easily in between John’s lips, flicking gently past teeth, before teasingly pulling out to trace John’s bottom lip. Someone groans in the humid space between their lips. Sherlock draws John’s lip between his own, sucking on the plump flesh, gently biting it with his teeth. He lets go and dips his tongue back into John’s mouth, giving John a taste of him (coffee, mint, him) before pulling away again to nip gently at John’s lips. He repeats the process--slip, flick, slide, suck-- until all John can taste is them both mingled together and all he wants is the beautiful push of Sherlock’s tongue inside his mouth.

All the while, Sherlock’s right hand remains tangled in John’s own; his fingers squeeze and relax, following a calm, steady beat, and from there warmth spreads up John’s arm and across his chest. Its intimacy leaves him untethered; this is making love with nothing more than the push and press of lips and tongue. He clings and sighs into the kiss, letting his tongue dance and slide against Sherlock’s. Though he feels worn, he tries to take what Sherlock is giving to him and offer back. He pours his affection, his loneliness, his starvation into the press of his lips against Sherlock’s. Their lips are puzzle pieces pushed easily together. John’s lips, thin and firm, were meant to press between Sherlock’s; as if the little dip between top and bottom lip had been waiting for John’s mouth to press its way there. As Sherlock’s tongue retreats, John follows, beckoned forward to gently push into Sherlock’s mouth. He is welcomed there; Sherlock’s tongue caresses John’s, encouraging him to press deeper and harder. Slow and sure, John learns the feel of Sherlock’s mouth against his own.

John’s right hand, up until now hanging loose at his side, presses against Sherlock’s back, spreading his fingers wide between his shoulder blades. Sherlock mirrors the action, hand gentle on the back of John’s neck, pulling toward him until they are crushed against each other’s chests, hands still intertwined. John raises up on his toes to keep from breaking the kiss. Where the encounter in the stairwell had been full of barely contained impatience, lust bubbling over and exploding, this moment, right now, is grounding in its simplicity. There is no rush. They rock together to a beat of their own making, pleasure guiding but never driving them to take more. Sherlock leads him through the kiss, pushing forward and retreating, mouth soft and slick against John’s, never trying to take more than John is willing to give. Treasured, he thinks. Sherlock kisses as if John is worth treasuring and the realization makes him pull back with a gasp.

Sherlock doesn’t open his eyes, nor does his hand drop from John’s nape, but he doesn’t press forward. When he speaks, his voice is nothing more than a gravel-filled whisper, brushing against John’s face. “She was wrong.”

“Oh?” His face tingles, all feeling dropping to his feet.

“Yes. Of course.” He uses his lips to soothe the deep furrow across John’s brow, the tired wrinkles around his eyes, the lines around his mouth.  “If you were easy to love, I wouldn’t love you at all.” He brushes a chaste kiss against his lips and pulls back just enough to mutter against his lips: “Let me. Let me.”

This is it, then. He could pull back, go upstairs, and continue on as he has or he could let Sherlock take care of him, relearn that feeling of waking up in the morning and not counting down the hours until he curls back up in a cold, half-empty bed, and allow himself to be in love and to let someone else love him in return. 

In the end, the decision is easy enough: he just has to let go. 

Sherlock kisses him, cradles him, and when John finally sobs, laughs, and lets himself fall, he catches him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you are curious, I can also be found on tumblr under the same username. Feel free to drop by and say hello. Also I help mod Let's Write Sherlock, so enjoy this shameless plug to join in on the fun of that.
> 
> And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] What He Deserves](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128610) by [consulting_smartass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)




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